Intuitive shares increased 6.8 percent to $419.88 at the
close in New York. Quarterly revenue was about $576 million, the
Sunnyvale, California-based company said today in a statement.
That beat the $549.1 million average of 18 analysts’ estimates
compiled by Bloomberg.

The shares dropped 22 percent last year, amid questions
about the safety of Intuitive’s da Vinci robot and the company’s
marketing and training practices. While sales of the machines
fell in the quarter, revenue for its instruments and accessories
rose 6 percent as more of the robotic procedures were performed,
the company said.

“Expectations were for a soft quarter, so the strong
fourth-quarter beat appears more than adequate,” Tycho Peterson, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst, said in a note to
clients that cited Intuitive’s “better-than-expected system
placements.”

Total fourth-quarter revenue declined about 5 percent from
a year earlier, Intuitive said.

Da Vinci sales largely took a hit in the U.S., driven by a
decline in gynecological procedures and a change in hospital
capital spending priorities due to health care reform, known as
Obamacare.

Cost Pressures

The cost pressures are likely to persist for awhile, said
Chief Executive Officer Gary Guthart at the JPMorgan Chase & Co.
health-care conference in San Francisco.

“The uncertainties with regard to the implementation of
the Affordable Care Act, the number of new cases coming in with
new insurance coverage and what the payment reforms will mean in
terms of revenue have put some uncertainty particularly into the
capital acquisition cycle for our customers,” Guthart said.
“As we’ve seen in the last few quarters, we suspect or expect
that uncertainty will persist until the ACA starts to settle out
in terms of hospitals’ ability to predict their revenues.”

The company said it had higher sales outside the country,
particularly in Japan.

Full fourth-quarter results are scheduled to be released on
Jan. 23, Intuitive said in the statement.